MacMillan's Reading Books eBook

of its flappings above the roar of the gale, and the
mountains of surf which made the rocks ring beneath
our feet;—­and how we stood silent, shuddering,
expecting every moment to see whirled into the sea
from the plunging yards one of those same tiny black
specks, in each one of which was a living human soul,
with sad women praying for him at home! And then
how they tried to get her head round to the wind,
and disappeared instantly in a cloud of white spray—­and
let her head fall back again—­and jammed
it round again, and disappeared again—­and
at last let her drive helplessly up the bay, while
we kept pace with her along the cliffs; and how at
last, when she had been mastered and fairly taken in
tow, and was within two miles of the pier, and all
hearts were merry with the hopes of a prize which
would make them rich, perhaps, for years to come—­one-third,
I suppose, of the whole value of her cargo—­how
she broke loose from them at the last moment, and
rushed frantically in upon those huge rocks below
us, leaping great banks of slate at the blow of each
breaker, tearing off masses of ironstone which lie
there to this day to tell the tale, till she drove
up high and dry against the cliff, and lay, like an
enormous stranded whale, grinding and crashing herself
to pieces against the walls of her adamantine cage.
And well I recollect the sad records of the log-book
which was left on board the deserted ship; how she
had been waterlogged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up
by her timber cargo, the crew clinging in the tops,
and crawling down, when they dared, for putrid biscuit-dust
and drops of water, till the water was washed overboard
and gone; and then notice after notice, “On this
day such an one died,” “On this day such
an one was washed away”—­the log kept
up to the last, even when there was only that to tell,
by the stern business-like merchant skipper, whoever
he was; and how at last, when there was neither food
nor water, the strong man’s heart seemed to
have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted
down in the log—­“The Lord have mercy
on us!”—­and then a blank of several
pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, “Remember
thy Creator in the days of thy youth;”—­and
so the log and the ship were left to the rats, which
covered the deck when our men boarded her. And
well I remember the last act of that tragedy; for
a ship has really, as sailors feel, a personality,
almost a life and soul of her own; and as long as her
timbers hold together, all is not over. You can
hardly call her a corpse, though the human beings
who inhabited her, and were her soul, may have fled
into the far eternities; and so we felt that night,
as we came down along the woodland road, with the
north-west wind hurling dead branches and showers
of crisp oak-leaves about our heads; till suddenly,
as we staggered out of the wood, we came upon such
a picture as it would have baffled Correggio, or Rembrandt
himself, to imitate. Under a wall was a long
tent of sails and spars, filled with Preventive men,